Ethical Issue on the Internet

honest issues relating to the utilization of the lucre and the implications for managers and business coiffure. by Mihai C. Orzan Abstract When we turn the topic of estimable issues on the net income we atomic number 18 gener al wizy referring at two opposite matters hiding and mental plaza. each has been examined extensively in the last five forms, since the cyberspace volatile intrusion in eitherday life activities, each has an important number of hoagie fields that require special attention from managers and whatsoever otherwise business professionals.The adjudicate of this paper is to to make a short pre moveation of close to relevant developments pertaining mesh honest issues in direct connection with the business globe. The retirement debate is centered on the arguments regarding citizens pay off to c on the whole overt granted or implied by rightfulnesss on superstar hand and companies approach on node info, considered an asset to sell for p rofits (Choi, 2000, p. 317) on the other hand. solitude on the mesh is exploding as a topic of public concern these days. A modern Internet survey showed that 4 step up of 5 practicers train major concerns regarding various covert holy terrors when theyre online.Yet exactly 6% of them make actu all(a)y experienced privacy abuses. Those who atomic number 18 non yet on the Net cite privacy as the main reason they take up chosen non to become Internet users. If electronic commerce is acquittance to thrive, this fear is going to nurture to be dealt with by righteousnesss and by fabrication practices and this paper attempts to perpetrate a thorough description of the major data processor ethics trends of the moment. The other major source of concern for business world as rise up as the majority of Internet users is right of first publication control.Serious incertitude come from both(prenominal) approaches on this matter what culture available on the Internet end I freely use and how git whizzness protect the hardly earned info that he posts on a entanglement send. In fact, The Internet has been characterized as the largest threat to shamright since its inception. It is awash in realizeledge, much of it with varying degrees of right of first publication egis. (OMah unmatchedy, 2001). right of first publicationed issue constitutes an important adjourn of this paper and it details al to the highest degree of the present concerns of quick-witted property. 1 screen Everyone has the right to hit the sack what entropy is collected and how it leave be apply and to take in or decline the collection or dissemination of this teaching particularly financial and medical instruction. President George W. Bush. screen has become a major concern on the Internet. According to (Ferrell, Leclair & Fraedrich, 1997), the extraordinary growth of the Internet has created a number of privacy issues that society has neer encountered bef ore and and so has been s minuscule to address. Opinions gull been expressed and actions were taken in grade to settlement these matters in one way or a nonher.In an interview earlier this year United States President George W. Bush (Miller, 2001) expressed numerous and informed concerns regarding privacy issues, including rise to power, security, and use of ad hominem breeding. He promised to ensure actions that go away meet consumer demands for privacy auspices and advocated opt- in policies for first appearancealizeing lists. He concluded the interview by stating I sh ar m all an(prenominal) hoi pollois concerns that, with the advent of the Internet, personal privacy is progressively at risk, and I am committed to protecting personal privacy for everyone. Privacy issues on the Internet relate to two major concerns. The number 1 concern is users ability to control the rate, type, and sequence of the information they view. Spam, or unasked commercial message e- bi llet, is a control concern be have it violates privacy and steals resources. A minute of arc concern relates to the ability of users to address and d avouch the stairsstand how organizations collect and use personal information on the Internet. Many 2 Web sites require visitors to attain themselves and pass on information rough their wants and needs. nigh Web sites track visitors footsteps through the site by storing a cookie, or identifying string of text, on their data processors. The use of cookies can be an ethical issue, especially because many users have no root word that this transfer of information is plain occurring. Internet privacy is an important ethical issue because most organizations engaging in e- commerce have non yet developed policies and enrols of conduct to encourage responsible behavior. Spamming cast aside e- get morose and spam argon both terms for advertising and e- mail sent to you which you did not ask for and which you do not want, (Elbel, 2 001).However, spam is a to a greater extent(prenominal) generic term that implys broadcast posting to word of honor themes as well as individuals. And spamming is very costly for the end users recent surveys showed that various forms of spam consume up to 15% of Internet bandwidth. According to a recent European Union study junk email costs all of us almost 9. 4 billion (US) dollars per year, and many major ISPs asseverate that spam adds 20% of the cost of their receipts, (Elbel, 2001). As you can go out spamming is a very profitable endeavor and have gr aver over the years to assume a number of different forms.Thus, we can sort v Unsolicited e- mail is any email message authentic where the recipient did not specifically ask to intoxicate it. It might not be al shipway an abuse. v Bulk e- mail is any group of messages sent via e- mail, with substantially identical content, to a large number of addresses at once. Many ISPs specify a threshold for majority e- mail to be 25 or much recipients within a 24- hour period. at a time again, bulk e- mail itself is not necessarily abuse of the e- mail system. 3 Unsolicited Commercial E- mail (UCE) is a form of e- mail containing commercial information that has been sent to a recipient who did not ask to receive it. Several ISPs specify that sending all the same one UCE is a intrusion of privacy. v Make Money Fast (MMF) be e- mail messages that justify immediate, incredible profits , including much(prenominal) schemes as chain letters. v Multi-Level foodstuff (MLM) atomic number 18 e- mail messages that guarantee incredible profits , right by and by you send them an initial investment and recruit others. v Mailbomb is probably the most harmful type of spamming.It takes the form of email packages delivered repeatedly to the kindred address until the mailbox is overloaded, or by chance even the system that hosts the mailbox crashes. Mailbombs to a greater extent oft than not take one of two for ms. A mailbox might be tar purported to receive hundreds or thousands of messages, make it difficult or impossible for the dupe to use their feature mailbox, possibly subjects them to additional charges for storage space, and might cause them to miss messages entirely due to overflow. This is adjoinn as a denial- of- operate attack, perhaps to a fault harassment.Another form of mailbombing is to forge subscription requests to many send out lists, all for one recipient. The result is a huge barrage of email arriving in the victims e- mail box, all of it unwanted, moreover original. There are whatsoever(prenominal) slipway to escape spamming, further none will guarantee 100 percent reliability. beginning(a), a complaint to the ISPs that originated and forwarded the spam is required. It is also recommended to switch to an ISP that uses one or all of the anti- spam infobases available (RBL, RSS, and DUL). About 40% of the Internet is using these go, with good success.Als o, it is important that you never, under any circumstance, reply to junk e- mail, even if it is to send a remove request. Most spammers ignore such 4 responses, or worse, add you to their list of validated e- mail addresses that they sell. Also, getting aloof doesnt clutch you from being added the next time they mine for addresses, nor will it get you off other copies of the list that have been sold or distributed to others. Finally, we should mark off that there are voices that argue that spamming is a legitimate form of expression and restricting it would be a First Amendment infringement.Even more, has been suggested that junk e- mail (also called bulk e- mail and spam) should be levelheadedly protect, (DAmbrosio, 2000). Tracking a user on the Internet Data around individuals is collected in a wide variety of ways, including information provided on finish forms, credence/debit card transactions, and cookies. Many users expect that such activities are anonymous, but unfo rtunately they are far from being so. It is possible to record many online activities, including which newsgroups or files a subscriber has entrance feeed and which weather vane sites a subscriber has visited.This information can be collected both by a subscribers own service provider (available in the request headers of browsers) and by agents of remote sites which a subscriber visits. But the most universal form of collecting data about web surfers is the cookie. These are short pieces of data employ by web servers to suspensor identify web users. The cookie is memory boardd on the users computer, but contrary to popular belief it is not an executable program and cannot do anything harmful to the forge. Cookies are employ by Internet shopping sites to keep track of users and their shopping handcarts.When someone first visits an Internet shopping site, they are sent a cookie containing the physique (ID number) of a shopping cart and other useful tags. Another use of cooki es is to create customized home 5 varlets. A cookie is sent to the users browser for each of the items they expect to see on their custom home page. ace of the slight admirable uses of cookies, and the one that is causing all the controversy, is its use as a device for tracking the browsing and buying habits of individual web users.On a single web site or a group of web sites within a single subdomain, cookies can be used to see what web pages you visit and how often you visit them. However, such concerns can be easily addressed by setting the browser to not accept cookies or use one of the new cookie auction block packages that offer selective cookie access. nonee that blocking all cookies prevents some online service from laping. Also, preventing the browser from accept cookies does not confer anonymity it just makes it more difficult to be tracked on the Web. Related to cookies, but more damaging is the activity cognize as prying.Many of the commercial online services will automatically download graphics and program upgrades to the users home computer. intelligence operation reports have rolled the fact that certain online services have admitted to both accidental and intentional prying into the memory of home computers signing on to the service. In some cases, personal files have been copied and collected by the online services. exercise of Personal culture You can take on out simple directory information about people on a variety of web sites, alike Switchboard, Whowhere, Four11, Bigfoot.These contain information retrieved from telephone books. And most of these sites cede someone who doesnt want to be listed in their databases to have his/her information removed. But beyond the free services there are the fee- based services where one can find out a great deal about 6 individuals on the Internet. There are services like as KnowX, Informus, Infotel, CDB, Infotek, data America, and Lexis- Nexis that offer subscription based services and give access both through the Internet or through their own telephone net temptings.The information they provide is primarily from public records like records of court cases, both courtly and criminal (not the full text, not yet anyway, but an index of cases), bankruptcies, judgments and liens, property records, such as county tax assessors files, professional license information, if regulated by the state, Dept of Motor Vehicle data from many states, voter registration data from many states, stock investments, if you own 15% or more of a companys stock, and many more other sources.Data warehouses built with this benign of refined personal information (including browsing patterns, also known as transaction- generated information) are the lifeblood of many enterprises that need to locate their customers with direct mailing (or e- mailing) campaigns. It whitethorn also create the potential for junk e- mail and other merchandising uses. Additionally, this information whitethorn be emb arrassing for users who have accessed sensitive or controversial materials online. In theory, individuals (data subjects) are routinely asked if they would permit their information to be used by the information collector.Application forms usually include a clause stating that personal information provided may be used for marketing and other purposes. This is the principle of informed consent, meaning that if the individual does not so request that his/her data not to be used for such purposes, it is off- diagnose that he/she had apt(p) permission. The alternative principle, of affirmative consent, where an individual is required to give permission for each and every occasion on which a data user wishes to make use of an individuals data, becomes highly pricey and complex and is seldom practiced.The Federal Trade Commission is urging commercial web site operators to make public their information collection practices in privacy policies posted on web sites. 7 Many web sites now post information about their information- collection practices. You can explore for a privacy seal of approval, such as TRUSTe, Council of Better vocation Bureaus (BBB), American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, WebTrust, and others on the first page of the web site. Those that participate in such programs agree to post their privacy policies and submit to audits of their privacy practices in order to display the logo.There are several technologies that help online users protect their privacy. v Encryption is a method of scrambling an e- mail message or file so that it is unintelligible to anyone who does not know how to unscramble it. Thus, individual(a) information may be encrypted, and then transmitted, stored or distributed without fear that outsiders will have access to its content. Various fortified encoding programs, such as PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and RSA (RSA Data Security) are available online.Because encryption prevents unlicensed access, law enforcement age ncies have expressed concerns over the use of this technology, and relation back has considered legislation to create a back door to allow law enforcement officials to decipher encrypted messages. Federal law limits exporting certain types of encryption code or descriptive information to other countries and file them under the same ammo type as nuclear weapons. v Anonymous remailers. Because it is comparatively easy to determine the name and email address of anyone who posts messages or sends e- mail, the practice of using anonymous remailing programs has become more common.These programs receive e- mail, strip off all identifying information, and then forward the mail to the appropriate address. v remembering protection package. software system system system package security programs are now available which help prevent unlicenced access to files on the home computer. For 8 example, one program encrypts every directory with a different password so that to access any direct ory you must log in first. Then, if an online service provider tries to rede any private files, it would be denied access. These programs may include an audit steer that records all activity on the computers drives.Censorship and Blocking software package With its recent explosive growth, the Internet now faces a problem inherent in all media that serve different audiences not all materials are appropriate for every audience (Resnick & Miller, 1996). Any rules or laws about distribution, however, will be likely restrictive from some perspectives, yet not restrictive enough from others. plain it might be easier to meet diverse needs by autocratic reception rather than distribution. In the TV indus assay, this realization has led to the V- chip, a system for blocking reception based on labels embedded in the broadcast stream.On the Internet, the termination might be considered even better, with richer labels that reflect diverse viewpoints, and more flexible selection criteri a. Not everyone needs to block reception of the same materials. Parents may not wish to expose their children to sexual or violent images, businesses may want to prevent their employees from visiting re presentational sites during hours of natural elevation net organizeplace usage, and governments may want to restrict reception of materials that are legitimate in other countries but not in their own.The blocking solution with the largest acceptance at this moment is PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection). Its labels are say to be able to describe any look of a document or a Web site. As was natural to be expected, PICS labels started out as an attempt to block web pages that were not compliant with impropriety 9 laws. As one of its initiators said, the sea captain impetus for PICS was to allow parents and teachers to prove materials they felt were inappropriate for children using the Net, (Weinberger, 1997).At this moment, Microsoft, Netscape, SurfWatch, CyberPatrol, and other software vendors have PICS- compatible intersection points, while AOL, AT WorldNet, CompuServe, and Prodigy provide free blocking software that is PICS- compliant. Intellectual Property Intellectual Property concerns the protection of all products created or designed by human intellect book, songs, poems, make domarks, blueprintsand software (Davidson, 2000, p. 9). The write of software programs, although nominally protected by secure laws, is certainly widespread. very much of the argument about IP lies in the deontological dichotomy between rights and duties, (Davidson, 2000, p. 12). parcel producers get hold of that they have the right to protect the fruit of their endeavors, and have the right to be furbish upd for the resources spend in the development process, while consumers claim that they have the right to use a product for which they have nonrecreational and expect that the product will be free of defects. This should lead to competitively priced produ cts with superior quality, providing value for money. 10 Copyright, Patents, and TrademarksAccording to prof. derriereson (2000) as computing resources become more and more prevalent, computer software becomes easier and easier to access, and as such, easier and easier to duplicate, (p. 124). Protection for ones work, from a sanctioned point of view, requires procure, patents, and trademarks for sensible and strategic information. The dress hat approach is to have a combination of trade secret protection, copyright laws, and trademark laws for the product in capitulum because these are cheap, consummationive, and fast ways of protecting a software product from being pirated.Copyright Issues Copyrighted works on the net include news stories, software, novels, block outplays, graphics, pictures, Usenet messages and even e- mail. In fact, the stimulate reality is that almost everything on the Net is protected by copyright law (OMahoney, 2001). software program and manuals, as novels and other literary works, are protected under copyright laws. In simple terms, this guarantees the copyright consumeor, the author in most cases, the exclusive rights to the reproduction and distribution of his intellectual property.Thus, copyright law guarantees the owner of the intellectual property the same types of rights that patent law guarantees the owner of an invention or other piece of seemingly more tangible physical property. Computer software and data are intellectual property, and as such are covered by copyright law. The problems start when people cannot, or will not, make the mental transition from physical to intellectual property. While most people would not steal books from a bookstall or a software package from a dealers showroom, 11 ven if they knew they would not be caught, many of the same people would not hesitate write a computer program from a demo or from their friends and colleagues. The only free software is the one places in the public do main, also known as freeware. For the rest of the software products the user must abide by the license agreements which usually come with a program and places restrictions upon reproducing and distributing the software, including such things as loaning the software to a friend or colleague and making duplicates for classroom or network use. Some licenses even go so far as to restrict use to a specific computer.In most cases, however, the user does have the right to make a backup copy of the software for archival purposes. In theory, any use of a software package which falls outside of the limits of the license agreement renders the user, and quite often the users company or institution, liable to prosecution. A computer program is outlined in the copyright law as a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain result. Copyright protection begins at the time a work is created in fixed form no act other than creati on of the work is required to obtain a copyright for the work.According to (Yoches and Levine, 1989) the scope of copyright protection for a computer programs expression may extend beyond its literal code to the structure, sequence and organization of the program. Another debated and important aspect of software copyright involves the use of databases, data warehouses, and other forms of data collections. chthonic traditional concepts of literary copyright, the data contained in a compilation, and the selection of the data, may sometimes not be protected from copying. Only the coordination and arrangement of the database may be protected, and even then there must be some originality to the collection and arrangement for it to be protected, (Losey, 1995). 12 There are essentially three ways to legally protect computer databases copyright, trade secret and contract. Raw facts in a database may not be protected by copyright, regardless(prenominal)(prenominal) of the time or expense t hat went into kettle of fish them. However, in many databases the data itself, or the particular expressions of the facts, may have been created by the author. In such cases the data has originality and can be protected.Even if the limit are raw facts, not new materials created by the author, the compilation aspects of the database (selection, coordination and arrangement) may still receive copyright protection. A trade secret is cognition which a person or company acquires through its own efforts and which has some value to it (Losey, 1995). Typically, this knowledge is kept secret from competitors because it is felt that this information provides some type of competitive advantage. Since a computer database is a compilation that derives sparing value, it is a type of intellectual property that has frequently received trade secrecy protection.Finally, the owner of a database can require that any emptor enter into a written contract as a discipline of purchase of the database. That written agreement could expressly provide that the purchaser will not get out the content to anyone but authorized users, nor make any copies or wildcat use of the information. Typically this takes the form of a permit Agreement between the owner/licensor of the database and the user/licensee of the database. Protect your site against stealth It might be useful to know that a plug into is a URL, a fact not unlike a street address, and is thereof not copyrightable.However, a URL list may be copyrightable under a 13 compilation copyright if it contains some originality. The Internet was created on the basis of being able to attach hypertext links to any other location on the Web. Consequently, by putting yourself on the Internet, you have inclined implied permission to others to link to your Web page, and everyone else on the Web is deemed to have given you implied permission to link to their Web pages (OMahoney, 2001). The two primary methods of protection are technical c ountermeasures and legal protection.Technical countermeasures include strategies such as digital watermarking and spiders that await the Internet for copies of your pages or graphics. These strategies tend to be difficult, expensive, and user- unfriendly. The primary vehicle for legal protection is copyright. This is by far the easiest and most popular form of protection in use today. In implementing a copyright strategy, there are three items that you should consider v Ownership before trying to copyright your website, a clear understanding of what exactly it is considered to be copyrighted is required.There are many elements to a website, including text, graphics, scripts, data, and code. If everything was created from scratch for the website, ownership is not an issue. However, if someone else created text, or some clip art was downloaded from other website, or scanned photographs from archives were used, or a web design firm was hired to load all informational content into an attractive package, then ownership of the respective elements is shared with the original creators, unless otherwise stated in contracts and licenses. Copyright billhook it is generally a good predilection to put a copyright chance on on your website. It used to be that in order to be afforded any copyright protection whatsoever, one needed to put the world on notice by attaching a copyright notice to the work. While this is no long-dated the case, it is still customary to attach a 14 copyright notice on copyrighted works in order to be entitled for certain types of damages. The copyright notice consists of at least elements that include the copyright symbol and/or the term Copyright, the year of copyright, and the name of the copyright holder. Registration register your copyright with the Copyright Office. Although the Copyright Act gives protection just for creating your work and reducing it to a tangible form, that protection proved somewhat illusory in some cases when regi stration was overlooked. Patents and Trademarks A recognized brand name or trademark represents the goodwill that has been built into the product or service, (Eldenbrock & Borwankar, 1996). Consumers tend to associate the recognized brand name or trademark with certain characteristics that are specific to that name or mark.Therefore, companies often spend millions of dollars annually for safeguarding the investment in the related intellectual property rights. Trademark laws protect the name of the software, not the software itself. Some examples include Lotus 1- 2- 3, Apple , D- BASE, WordPerfect, and many others. Copyright protection protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. A patent protects the idea itself. There are two major drawbacks to patents. They take a big money of money and a lot of time (usually two or more years).Computer games are rarely patent protected because the shelf life for a game is usually no more than six months. 15 decorous Use When the fa ir use doctrine applies to a specific use of a work, the person making fair use of the work does not need to seek permission from the copyright owner or to compensate the copyright owner for the use of the work, (Lehman, 1998). The fair use is a form of limitation of the exclusive rights of copyright owners for purposes such as criticism, comments, news reporting, teaching (including the possibility to make multiple copies of a copyrighted work for classroom use), scholarships, or research.In order to determine whether the use made of a work in any particular case is not a copyright infringement, Smiths (2001) Copyright Implementation Manual offers the pursuit guidelines 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial genius or is for nonprofit educational purposes 2. the nature of the copyrighted work 3. the bill and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole and 4. the effect of the use upon the poten tial market for or value of the copyrighted work.The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. Those creators and authors who wish to gift their works to the public domain may, of course, do so notwithstanding the availableness of protection under the Copyright Act. 16 Libel and Defamation We know that as the Internet grows, there will be more and more lawsuits involving malign and calumny. said attorney David H. Donaldson, editor of ratified Bytes, The only question is if the number of cases will grow steadily or if there will be an explosion of lawsuits all at once. The Internet has been used to harass, slander, threat and these online activities led to arrests, successful sues (because have used netnews to slander and for delivering inappropriate screen saver images) and other forms of legal punishments. The most frequent form of libel on the Internet is flaming, defined as the practice of sending extremely scathing, derogatory, and often vulgar e- mail messages, or newsgroup postings to other users on the Internet or online services (OBrien, 2002, pp. 326).Famous cases of racism or defamation have turned the attention at the gaps in legislation regarding Internet crime. Sexual apparent web pages are responsible for another stir in neighborly awareness regarding Internet- related legal void. Sometimes even a link to anothers page could be defamatory and may subject someone to legal liability, (INET Legal Networks, 2001), if it links to a page where offensive or prohibited content is present and if you do not give strong warning to the web surfer about the consequences of his/her click.There are a number of features unique to the Internet that distinguish it from any other sensitive and have led to the current re- examination of existing libel laws to allow for their possible evolution and ultimately their application in the cyberspace, (Potts & Ha rris, 1996). These features include its global nature (more than 125 countries are linked via Internet), which raised questions about jurisdiction, repeated publication every time a 17 page is updated/viewed, and the possibility to enforce judgments.Another Internet specific aspect is its highly interactional nature, which decreases the effectiveness of later corrections, but empowers the ability to reply, which might be considered more gratifying, immediate and potent than launching a libel action. Accessibility is another feature of the Internet, which distinguishes it from traditional print or broadcast media. The relatively low cost of connecting to the Internet and even of establishing ones own website means that the opportunity for defamation has increased exponentially. Now, on the Internet everyone can be a publishing company and can be sued as a publisher.Internet anonymity means that users do not have to reveal their true identity in order to send email or post message s on bulletin boards. This feature, united with the ability to access the Internet in the privacy and seclusion of ones own home or office and the interactive, responsive nature of communications on the Internet, has resulted in users being far less inhibited about the confine of their messages than in any other form of media. Computer Crime One of the biggest threats for the online community comes from various ways in which a computers network in general and the Internet in special might be used to support computer crime.The list of such actions is vast as criminals are doing everything from stealing intellectual property and committing fraud to unleashing viruses and committing acts of cyber terrorism (Sager, Hamm, Gross, Carey & Hoff, 2000) and a a few(prenominal) of the most dangerous and common ones have already entered the general IT folklore. The tie-in of Information Technology Professionals defined computer crime as including unauthorized use, access, modification, and destruction of hardware, software, data, or network resources unauthorized release of information unauthorized copying of 18 oftware denying an end user access to his or her own hardware, software, data, or network resources using or conspiring to use computer or network resources to illegally obtain information or tangible property. Software plagiarisation Software piracy is the illegal copying of computer software. It is also considered the computer industrys worst problem and, according to the specialists, has become a category crime. People who wouldnt think of sneaking merchandise out of a store or burgling a house regularly obtain copies of computer programs that they havent gainful for, (Hard- Davis, 2001).Software piracy is fought by legal means (licenses, copyright, trademarks and patents, and lawsuits, when all else fails). According to Zwass (1997), bank check controls (legal sanctions) and preventive controls (increasing the cost of piracy by technological means) ca n be used to combat software piracy. Information technology is a key driver in the globalization and growth of the world economy. In a recent study of worldwide software market (International Data tum, 1999) the entirety worldwide package software market has been stimated at $135 billion. general expenditures on software are expected to increase to about $220 billion by the year 2002. The U. S. software industry is reaping the benefits of this hyper growth, having captured 70% of global software sales. According to (Software Publishers companionship, 1998), the worldwide revenues of business- based PC applications was $17. 2 billion, but global revenue breathing outes due to piracy in the business application software market were calculated at $11. 4 billion.This is very similar to the report of (International Research and Planning, 2001)s Business Software Alliance (BSA), a watchdog group representing the worlds leading software manufacturers, which inform the results of 19 its sixth annual benchmark survey on global software piracy. The independent study highlights the serious impact of copyright infringement with piracy losses nearing $11. 8 billion worldwide in 2000. icon 1 shows an arouse correlation between the national piracy judge compiled by the SPA with the per capita GNP for 65 countries in the year 1997.Higher software piracy rates are heavily skewed towards countries with low per capita GNP. The effect of GNP is much more pronounced for the countries with GNPs less than $6,000, as shown in pick up 2. Each $1,000 increase in per capita GNP is associated with a intimately 6% decrease in the piracy rate. These results indicate a world-shaking income effect on the global piracy rates, particularly in the poorer segments of the world. The different ways of illegally copying computer software can be broken down into five basic ways of pirating. Counterfeiting is duplicating and selling unauthorized copies of software in such a manner as to try to pass off the illegal copy as if it were a legitimate copy produced by or authorized by the publisher. v Softlifting is the acquire of a single licensed copy of software and loading it on several machines, contrary to the terms of the license agreement. This includes sharing software with friends and co- workers. v Hard- disk loading is selling computers pre- loaded with illegal software. v Bulletin-board piracy is putting software on a bulletin- board service for nyone to copy or copying software from a bullet in- board service that is not shareware or freeware. v Software rental is the renting of software for temporary use. An interesting study regarding software piracy in academician environment was conducted at the Faculty of Business at the City University of Hong Kong (Moores & 20 Dhillon, 2000). A total of 243 usable responses were received, of which 122 were female and 121 were male. As shown in variety 3, 81% of the respondents report they buy pirated software on a regular basis, with a significant minority (29%) buying every month, and 3% even reporting they buy several times a week.The most popular pirated software bought was spreadsheets, followed by programming languages, databases, word processors, and statistical packages. Other software mentioned included e- mail, graphics, and game software. Only 7% claim to have never bought pirated software. Illegal Information The Internet was designed as an inherently unassured communications vehicle. This allowed an impressive number of security gaps that led to numerous hacking techniques. in all likelihood the most famous one at this moment is the denial of service attack, that led to the shutdown of many famous Internet sites, including Yahoo , eBay, Amazon, and CNN.Other hacking simulated military operation include spoofing (faking an web page to trick users into giving away critical information), Trojan horses (programs that are planted on users machine without his knowledge), logic bombs (instructions in computer programs that triggers malicious acts), and password crackers. According to Givens (2001), identicalness thieves are able to shop online anonymously using the identities of others. Web- based information brokers sell sensitive personal data, including Social Security numbers, relatively cheaply. In December 1999 300,000 credit card numbers were stolen from the online music retailer CD Universe database.Thats way it is considered a federal crime to possess 15 ore more access devices like cellular activation codes, describe passwords, and credit card numbers. 21 Beside the theft that these kinds of devices enable, such actions lead to loss of trust from customers to such services that have been the target of hacking. It is also illegal in many states to have pornographic related material on your machine, and in some cases mere possession of child pornography is punishable by many years in jail. As mentioned before, possession or export of certain types of cryptographic techniques is a very serious federal crime.AMA mandate of morality of Marketing on the Internet All professionals find a code of ethics is useful to guide them through the sometimes thorny issues that confront them (Klampert, 1998). Codes of ethics are an organized, written set of rules that describe expected behaviors. There are many such codes in Information Systems (ACM, IEEE, British Computer Society), but none of them has overall recognition. Most institutions that provide Internet access have formulated policies and procedures regarding the fair use of their facilities.The most frequent policies are grouped under the following categories a Code for Ethical Computer Use (usually a written policy an institution has developed to describe ethical use of their computer system), an E- mail Privacy Policy, and an Internet Access Policy. One of the most representative such codes for the Internet community is the one that has been imposed by the American Marketing As sociation for its members. Below there are a few of the most interesting requirements, as they can be found in the latest rendering of (AMA, 2001) Code of ethics for Marketing on the Internet 2 hamper to all applicable laws and regulations with no use of Internet marketing that would be illegal, if conducted by mail, telephone, fax or other media. Organizational commitment to ethical Internet practices communicated to employees, customers and relevant stakeholders. Information collected from customers should be confidential and used only for expressed purposes. All data, especially confidential customer data, should be safeguarded against unauthorized access. The expressed wishes of others should be respected with regard to the receipt of unasked e-mail messages.Information obtained from the Internet sources should be properly authorized and documented. Marketers should treat access to accounts, passwords, and other information as confidential, and only examine or disclose conten t when authorized by a responsible party. The integrity of others information systems should be respected with regard to placement of information, advertising or messages. Conclusions This R paper gives a general overview of the most debated ethical issues related to the use of Internet and their implications for managers and business practice.However, there are several other less critical aspects that should be considered by a very thorough fiat and some very interesting papers on these subjects are listed in Appendix C. These aspects include unauthorized use of computer resources at work, accessing individuals private e- mail and telephone conversations and computer records by the companies they work for and other forms of computer monitoring, challenges to 23 work conditions and individuality that are brought about by computer systems, mistaken computer matching of individuals, and many, many more.To protect themselves and the people they work with, information professionals nee d to be as professional as they can be and, sometimes, must decline a project if clients insist that they do something they have moral objections about. Ethical considerations are inherent for any IT professional. deterrent example behavior, including acting with integrity, increasing personal competence, setting high standards of personal performance, accepting responsibility for your actions, avoiding computer crime, and increasing the security of computer systems developed are just a few of many such considerations.Overall, I bank that there is a critical need for heightened debate on professional ethics in Information Systems. 24 Appendix A Figure 1. Per capita GNP and piracy rates. Figure 2. piracy rates and per capita GNP less than $6000 25 Figure 3. Frequency of pirated software. 26 Appendix B Cited workings 1. Choi, S. Y. & Whinston, A. B. (2000). The Internet Economy Technology and Practice. Austin, TX SmartEcon Publishing. 2. DAmbrosio, J. (2000,. January). Should Jun k E- mail Be Legally Protected? online. getable http//www. fmew. com/archive/junk/. October 26, 2001). 3. Davidson, Robert (2000, April). Professional Ethics in Information Systems A Personal Perspective. Communications of the AIS, Vol. 3, Article 8. 4. Elbel, F. (2001, October 23). Junk E- mail and Spam. online. visible(prenominal) http//www. ecofuture. org/jmemail. html. (October 26, 2001). 5. Elderbrock, David and Borwankar, Nitin. (1996). Building Successful Internet Businesses The Essential Sourcebook for Creating Businesses on the Net. Foster City, CA IDG Books Worldwide. 6. Ferrell, O. C. , Leclair, D. T. , & Fraedrich, J. P. (1997, October).Integrity counseling A Guide to Managing Legal and Ethical Issues in the Workplace. OCollins Corp. 7. Givens, Beth. (2001, March). A Review of Current Privacy Issues. online. visible(prenominal) http//www. privacyrights. org/ar/Privacy- IssuesList. htm. (October 26, 2001). 8. Hard- Davis, G. (2001, March). Internet Piracy Exposed. Al ameda, CASybex. 27 9. INET Legal Networks (2001). Defamation Law for Internet online. Available http//www. lawforinternet. com/subject_defamation. php3? searchkys=defamation =topdefamation. html. (October 26, 2001). 10.International Data Corporation (1999, February 10). Distribution of Worldwide Software Revenues Vary Dramatically online. Available www. idcresearch. com/ excite/default. htm. (October 26, 2001). 11. International Research and Planning. (2001, May). Sixth Annual BSA Global Software Piracy Study. online. Available http//www. bsa. org/resources/200105- 21. 55. pdf. (October 26, 2001). 12. Johnson, Mark B. (2000, January). Software Piracy Stopping It Before It dinero You. Proceedings of the sixteenth ACM SIGUCCS host on User Services. pp. 124- 131. 13. Klampert, Elizabeth (1998, July 13).Business Ethics for Information Professionals. Proceedings of the AALL 1998 Conference on Independent Law Librarian Program, Anaheim, CA. 14. Lehman, B. A. , (1998). The Conference on Fair Use final report to the commissioner on the finis of the Conference on Fair Use. Washington, DC Office of Public personal business U. S. Patent and Trademark Office. 15. Losey, Ralph C. (1995). Practical and Legal Protection of Computer Databases online. Available http//www. eff. org/Intellectual_property/database_protection. paper. (October 25, 2001). 16. Miller, M. J. (2001, February 6).Bushs Privacy Plan. PC Magazine, Vol. 20, No. 3. 28 17. Moores, T & Dhillon, G. (2000, December). Software Piracy A View from Hong Kong. Communication of the ACM, Vol. 28, No. 10, p. 88- 93. 18. OBrien, J. A. (2002). Management Information Systems Managing Information Technology in the E- Business Enterprise. New York, NY McGraw- Hill. 19. OMahoney, B. (2001). Copyright Website online. Available http//www. benedict. com/digital/digital. asp. (October 26, 2001). 20. Potts, David & Harris, S. (1996, May 16). Defamation on the Internet online. Available http//owl. nglish. purdue. edu/handouts/ research/r_apa. html. (October 26, 2001). 21. Resnick, P. & Miller, J. (1996). PICS Internet Access Controls Without Censorship. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 39, No. 10, pp. 87- 93. 22. Sager, Ira, Hamm, Steve, Gross, Neil, Carey, John and Hoff, Robert. (2000, February 21). Business Week. 23. Smith, Steve. (2001, May). Copyright Implementation Manual online. Available http//www. groton. k12. ct. us/mts/cimhp01. htm. (December 1, 2001). 24. Software Publishers Association (1998). SPAs Report on Global Software Piracy online. Available www. pa. org/piracy/98report. htm. (October 26, 2001). 25. Weinberger, J. (1997, March). Rating the Net. Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal, Vol. 19. 26. Yoches, E. Robert & Levine, Arthur J. (1989, May). staple fibre principles of copyright protection for computer software. Communications of the ACM Vol. 32 No. 5. pp. 544. 27. Zwass, Vladimir. (1997, Spring). editorial Introduction. Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol . 13, No. 4, pp. 3- 6. 29 Appendix C Bibliography 1. American Marketing Association (2001). Full Text of the AMA Code of Ethics online.Available http//www. ama. org/about/ama/fulleth. asp. (October 26, 2001). 2. Berman, J. & Weitzner, D. (1995). User Control Renewing the Democratic Heart of the First Amendment in the Age of Interactive Media. Yale Law Journal, Vol. 104, pp. 1619. 3. BRINT Institute. (2001). Intelectual Property Copyright, Trademarks and Patents. online. Available http//www. brint. com/IntellP. htm. (October 26, 2001). 4. British Computer Society. (2000). British Computer Society Code of Practice online. Available http//www. bcs. org. uk/aboutbcs/cop. htm. (November 30, 2001). 5. CETUS. (1995).Fair Use A Statement of Principle online. Available http//www. cetus. org/fair4. html. (December 1, 2001). 6. Cheng, H. K. , Sims, R. R. , and Teegen, H. (1999, Spring). To Purchase or to Private Software An Empirical Study. Journal of Management Information Systems Vol. 13, No . 4, p. 49- 60. 7. Gopal, R. D. , & Sanders, G. L. (1997, Spring). Preventive and Deterrent Controls for Software Piracy. Journal of Management Information Systems Vol. 13 No. 4. pp. 29- 47. 30 8. Hinman, Lawrence M. (2001, September 15). Ethic Updates online. Available http//ethics. acusd. edu/index. tml. (October 25, 2001). 9. Jamison, B. , Gold, J. & Jamison, W. (1997). Electronic merchandising 23 Steps to ESelling Profits. New York, NY McGraw Hill. 10. Lending, D. & Slaughter, S. A. (2001, April). Research in progress the personal effects of ethical climate on attitudes and behaviors toward software piracy. Proceedings of the 2001 ACM SIGCPR convocation on Computer personnel research. p. 198- 200. 11. Limayem, Moez, Khalifa, Mohamed , Chin, Wynne W. (1999, January). Factors Motivating Software Piracy. Proceeding of the 20th outside(a) conference on Information Systems, p. 124- 13. 12.Scott, Thomas J. , Kallman, Ernest A. , Lelewer, Debra. (1994 November). Ethical Issues Involv ing the Internet. Proceedings of the conference on Ethics in the computer age. pp. 31- 32. 13. Thong, J. Y. L. , & Yap, C. S. (1998, Summer). Testing and Ethical DecisionMaking system The Case of Softlifting. Journal of Management Information Systems Vo. 15, No. 1. pp. 213- 237. 14. U. S. Department of muscle Computer Incident Advisory Capability Information Bulletin. (1998, March 12). Internet Cookies. online. Available http//ciac. llnl. gov/ciac/bulletins/i- 034. shtml. (October 26, 2001). 31